


Tattooed!Nicky and Joe

by greedy_dancer



Series: Tumblr & Twitter ficlets [20]
Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Headcanon, M/M, Notfic, Tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:14:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25495189
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greedy_dancer/pseuds/greedy_dancer
Summary: Nile can’t hold back her gasp the first time she seems them both shirtless, hanging out around a pool in one of their villas. They’ve been careful, and you really can’t see anything under their clothes at all.It’s not like any tattoos she’s ever seen, a mish-mash of styles and colours, writing and numbers and symbols and faces, and it feels like seeing too much--she almost feels like she should avert her eyes, worse even than the time she walked in on them fucking.What if Nicky & Joe were covered in tattoos? A Tumblr not!fic repost.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Series: Tumblr & Twitter ficlets [20]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/76009
Comments: 12
Kudos: 198





	Tattooed!Nicky and Joe

**Author's Note:**

> This is what I wrote while procrastinating on the WIP I started to procrastinate on the WIP I should _really_ have been writing. *facepalm*
> 
> Un-betaed.

But can you imagine Joe & Nicky, just COVERED IN TATTOOS under their clothes??

(I know tattoos are frowned upon in both of their religions but let’s say that either they’ve both stopped observing their original faiths’ lifestyle rules--after all, pretty sure the Bible and the Quran both frown on the idea of humans randomly resurrecting--or that they’re atheists here.)

So they’re both covered with ink head-to-toe by now, because they’ve been collecting them for centuries, commemorating all the places they’ve been, the eras they’ve lived through, the people they’ve met and loved and lost (they both have some for Lykon and Quynh, and Andy smiles sadly every time she catches a glimpse of them).

And they would have had time to learn how to tattoo, of course. They’re secretly the world’s most experienced artists & they do each other’s ink whenever they can--they have equipment stored in a few of their safehouses--but also some lucky few people they deem worthy enough to risk it.

Of course word gets around in the tattoo connaisseur community, and their names are shared, very hush-hush, by a small group of their fans.

Getting an appointment with them is super rare--there’s an email address you can try, and most of the time you don’t get an answer but sometimes one will come 3 years later, and then it says “I can make some time for you but you have to come to me. I can see you in 2 days in Buenos Aires or next Friday in Kinshasa.”

Their fans are divided between those who think they’re criminals on the run, and those who believe they’re spies (some believe they might be both.)

They don’t charge anything but you have to swear you’ll keep their identity secret, or they’ll come back for the tattoo.

(That one sounds like an urban legend, but they say one dude who was lucky enough to be chosen blabbed about his experience on social media and a year later, he got in a freak accident that left him unharmed except for that one tattoo, which was damaged beyond recognition.)

Nile can’t hold back her gasp the first time she seems them both shirtless, hanging out around a pool in one of their villas. They’ve been careful, and you really can’t see anything under their clothes at all.

It’s not like any tattoos she’s ever seen, a mish-mash of styles and colours, writing and numbers and symbols and faces, some of the pieces so faded that you almost can't make them out anymore, and other that look like they've been tattooed over--not a cover-up, just a second layer on top of the first one.

It feels like seeing too much--she almost feels like she should avert her eyes, worse even than the time she walked in on them fucking.

Joe catches her looking, and he raises an eyebrow.

“Those are amazing,” she says. “Will you tell me about them sometime?”

“Sure,” he says. “We’re due for a session anyway, aren’t we, love?”

“Does either of you even have room anymore?”

“He’s pretty full up,” Joe says, jerking his head towards Nicky, and if she looks carefully she can tell that every possible square inch of Nicky’s pale skin has been filled. Joe seems like he’s got more room left in between the major pieces. “He started it, and when he ran out of space they just bled onto me I guess.”

He shrugs, like it’s totally normal to divide memories like this between two people, like they’re sharing the same skin.

“What will you get? What happened?” she starts asking, because they must be pretty careful about what events are important enough to immortalize on themselves, otherwise they would both have run out of real estate ages ago. Of course, she realizes halfway through her question.

“Booker,” she says.

Nicky turns his head at that. He looks at Joe, and then at her, smiling.

“No, not Booker,” he corrects. “You.”

**Author's Note:**

> Also on [Tumblr](https://greedydancer.tumblr.com/post/624559935654625280/old-guard-tattoos-headcanon)!


End file.
